Carter: 'Stupid decision' by SCOTUS

President Jimmy Carter blasted the role money has played in worsening the tone in Washington, and said the Supreme Court ruling last week has “exacerbated” the problems.

In a wide-ranging interview, Carter said Washington had experienced a “sea change” since when he was in office.

Story Continued Below

“There was a spirit of harmony there, friendship. … All of these things are gone, primarily due to a stupid decision that the Supreme Court made on Citizens United and that they exacerbated this past week with another ruling,” Carter said Friday. “And this massive infusion of almost unrestricted money going into the political campaign, a lot of it is spent just on negative commercials to tear down the reputation of your opponent and that polarization that occurs, that didn’t exist when I ran for office.”

Carter’s grandson, Jason, is currently running for governor in Georgia, and Carter said the amount of money being poured into that race is hurting as well.

“I think Jason is a very bright young man and he knows the state of Georgia, he’s been in the Peace Corps, he has a good education,” the former president said. “I think he’s making pretty good progress. Unfortunately, he won’t have the ability or the massive sums of numbers from the Koch brothers and so forth that the Republican candidates will enjoy.”

Carter also elaborated on comments he made recently to The Washington Post, in which he said he would consider pardoning Edward Snowden under certain circumstances.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that Snowden violated American laws and the oath he took as a contractor, working one step away from government,” Carter said. “If I were president, and if he came back to the United States and if he was tried and found guilty by a jury and he was sentenced, then at that time … I would consider [pardoning him] if I thought the punishment exceeded the damage he did to our country.”

Carter, who is making the rounds timed to his new book on violence against women, “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power,” also issued a harsh rebuke to the United States for its record on reducing prostitution.

“The United States does about as poor a job as any country in the world in addressing prostitution,” Carter said. “There is not a brothel or whorehouse in America that the local officials don’t know about, whether it’s in Austin, Texas, or Atlanta, Ga., or Los Angeles or New York.”

Carter also urged the United States to bolster efforts by the United Nations to improve the lives of women worldwide.

“One thing we could do, what most other countries have done, and that is to ratify the basic laws that have been passed by the United Nations. One of them is the The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Act. … The other is an International Violence Against Women Act. … And those two, if they were ratified, would give the United States a legal entree into countries to assist them to overcome the abuse of women and girls in a constructive but sometimes forceful way.”

Carter’s White House years — specifically the Camp David peace accords — are currently enjoying a bit of a resurgence in D.C., in the form of an Arena Stage production called “Camp David” that focuses on the Middle East peace summit. Gerald Rafshoon, a longtime aide to Carter and a producer of “Camp David,” said Carter hates being referred to as “the most accomplished former president,” a reference to his work at the Carter Center and on behalf of Habitat for Humanity.

“I don’t hate being called that,” Carter said. “I like it when people say, ‘You were a good president and a good former president.’ … All of those students I teach in college, they look on my administration as ancient history. But I had a good administration. I’m proud of what we did. But I’m not sensitive about that at all. I may have been in the early days, like 30 years ago, but I’m over that now.”